Tools & Equipment to Manipulate Materials in the Science & Technology Collection

This group of artifacts includes objects used to manipulate and harvest raw materials and commodities into salable products. The industries represented range from industries of Louisiana’s past to industries operating in Louisiana today.

Objects relating to Agriculture

The cotton industry is well represented by a portable cotton press and several scales used on plantations and on the waterfront in New Orleans to prepare cotton for market. Items related to the sugar industry include thermometers, saccharimeters, marble mortars, and a modern cane harvester. A tobacco press along with cigar rollers, cutters, and carrots of tobacco are remnants of a once prominent tobacco industry in this state.

Textile Working

An extensive collection of Acadian tools for making textiles is held by the museum. These include full-size looms, small clock reels, bobbins, shuttles, and spinning reels. The museum also has a small cotton gin on display that was used on a plantation near Monroe, Louisiana.

Metalworking

Prominent Louisiana metalworkers whose tools are represented in the museum’s collection include some of the doubloon dies and test strikes of H. Alvin Sharp, known locally as the father of the modern Mardi Gras doubloon. Also included are many metalworking tools from the U.S. Mint in New Orleans and tools from metal shops in New Orleans.

Woodworking Tools

A variety of items are represented in the museum’s collection of tools designed to manipulate wood. These include the wheelwright’s tools of Charles Nicholas Foltz and an extensive collection of tools related to the cypress lumber industry. Many cypress industry tools can be viewed in the Cypress Sawmill exhibit at the Wedell-Williams Aviation & Cypress Sawmill Museum in Patterson. These items are owned by the Cypress Sawmill Foundation in Patterson, an organization committed to the preservation of cypress lumber industry history in South Louisiana.

Acadian Weaving Shuttles, c. 1860. Wood. Gift of Friends of the Cabildo. Louisiana State Museums 1980.144.13-.14

Acadian Weaving Shuttles, c. 1860
Wood
Gift of Friends of the Cabildo
Louisiana State Museum 1980.144.13-.14

Utilized in the Lafayette area during the Civil War, these Acadian weaving shuttles were used to store yarn during the weaving process. Textile production was a common trade of Acadian families in Louisiana. The Louisiana State Museum holds numerous artifacts related to Acadian textile production.

Cotton Gin
Manufactured by J & T Pearce, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1845
Wood, metal
Louisiana State Museum I.1992.0087

Originally used on a cotton plantation near Monroe, Louisiana, this cotton gin was used to separate cotton fibers from seeds, a process that revolutionized cotton production in the United States. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1793, seeds were separated from cotton by hand. After the cotton gin was invented, cotton production increased rapidly in the United States. In the American South, the cotton industry boom escalated the reliance upon slavery for cotton production prior to the American Civil War. This cotton gin can be seen on display at the Cabildo in New Orleans.

Cane Harvester
c. 2003
Louisiana State Museum P.2004.003

Modern sugarcane harvester, commonly used in sugar production in Louisiana. Cane harvesters separate leaves from cane stalks and then cut cane stalks into segments to be processed into sugar. This cane harvester can be seen on display at the Capitol Park Museum in Baton Rouge.

Drill Bits
Metal
Cypress Sawmill Collection, Louisiana State Museum CS.1999.13.04.1-.3

These drill bits were used by the Cade Lumber Company for a hand drill. They are part of an extensive collection of woodworking tools in the Cypress Sawmill collection at the Wedell-Williams Aviation & Cypress Sawmill Museum in Patterson.

Log Saw
Ottawa Manufacturing Company, c. 1910
Metal machinery, wood
Cypress Sawmill Collection, Louisiana State Museum CS.2011.003

Engine-powered log saw manufactured by the Ottawa Manufacturing Company. Part of an extensive collection of woodworking tools on display at the Wedell-Williams Aviation & Cypress Sawmill Museum in Patterson, Louisiana.